The Practice of Cultural Studies

This is a book about the practice of researching culture. It offers, as our title suggests, a clarification and elaboration of the methodological basis for ‘cultural studies, which we understand to be a particular approach within the study of culture. It reflects both on the range of methods used in cultural research and their integrity or possibilities for combination. It asks what the implications for method are of being inside your object of study, of seeking to produce knowledge about cultural processes. It addresses in detail and in sequence all the main dusters of methods that are used in cultural studies, often grouped in terms of ‘reading texts’ on the one side and ‘talking to people on the other. While we start from this division in Part III — Readings—and Part IV — Meetings — we seek to break it down.